My blogging about commercial nuclear reactors has focused on the generation of electricity from such reactors. In addition to generating electricity, the heat given off by nuclear reactors can also be used directly for industry and district heating. District heating is a system that distributes heat generated in a central location through a network of insulated pipes to residential and industrial consumers. Residences use the heat for space heating and to heat water. There are two values assigned to the output of a commercial power plant. Watts can be a measure of both electricity and heat.
      Pool-type light water nuclear reactors (also called swimming pool reactors) feature a core immersed in an open pool of normal water. The water serves as a neutron moderator, coolant and radiation shield. One of the benefits of a pool reactor is that the cooling system is operating at normal air pressure and temperature. This makes the reactor much safer to work around. These reactors burn enriched uranium that is less than twenty percent U-235 which is considered highly enriched uranium. Pool reactors are not used to generated electricity but have been used as heat sources. They cannot meltdown as commercial power reactors may do. And they have very low emissions of radioactive materials which makes them desirable for use in urban areas.
      China began researching the possible application of nuclear power to heating in the early 1980s. During 1983 and 1984, the Institute of Nuclear Energy and Technology (INET) at Tsinghua University used its experimental pool-type reactor to provide heating for nearby buildings. Also during that time, INET constructed two nuclear heating reactors. One of those reactors was a deep pool-type and the other one was a regular vessel-type reactor. INET built a five Megawatt experimental thermal pool-type reactor called the NHR5 between 1986 and 1989. The larger production prototype NHR200-II was constructed based on the design of the NHR5.
             The China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has been constructing and studying experimental pool reactors for over fifty years. The China Institute of Atomic Energy recently operated a pool-type reactor for one hundred sixty-eight hours. Following this success, the CNNC started an independent research and development program with their Yanlong pool-type reactor (also known as DHR-400) in November of 2017.
       CNNC said, “The Yanlong reactor is an effective way to improve China’s energy resource structure by utilizing nuclear energy for district heating, and to ease the increasing pressures on energy supplies. Nuclear energy heating could also reduce emissions, especially as a key technological measure to combat haze during winter in northern China. Thus, it can benefit the environment and people’s health in the long run.”
       The Yanlong reactor “can be constructed either inner land or on the coast, making it an especially good fit for northern inland areas, and it has an expected lifespan of around 60 years. In terms of costs, the thermal price is far superior to gas, and is comparably economical with coal and combined heat and power.”
        China General Nuclear and Tsinghua University are working on a feasibility study for the first commercial nuclear plant dedicated to district heating. The plant would use the technology developed for the NHR200-II.  The president of Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research & Design Institute and senior vice president of State Nuclear Power Technology Company said that using fossil fuels for heating is creating terrible pollution in China during winter months. He also said, “To prevent air pollution and to enhance human life, we think that nuclear power, especially the use of nuclear energy to supply district heating, is very important.”

Ambient office  = 137 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Brussell sprout from Central Market = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 70 nanosieverts per hour

       I have blogged about molten salt reactors (MSR). In a MSR, nuclear materials are dissolved in a molten fluoride or chloride salt. The molten salt becomes both the fuel for the reactor and the coolant for the fission reaction. The meltdowns feared in conventional power reactors are impossible in MSRs.
        Terrestrial Energy USA (TE) is a startup working on what they refer to as an Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR). In the TE design, the primary reactor components which include primary heat exchangers are integrated with a secondary clean salt circuit in a sealed and replaceable core vessel. It is a small modular reactor designed for fabrication in a factory. It can be used to generate one hundred and ninety megawatts of electricity or as a source for industrial heat generation. TE hopes to be able to produce a commercial version of the IMSR in the 2020s.
       TE started a feasibility study in June of 2017 for the siting of the first commercial IMSR at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratory facility at Chalk River, Ontario. Last March, TE signed a memorandum of understanding with respect to possible siting, construction and operation of an IMSR at the Idaho National Laboratory in southern Idaho.
       TE has announced that it is going to partner with Southern Energy Company and several U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories to utilize the ISMR for the production of hydrogen. Southern Energy Company (SE) is an U.S. independent oil and gas company that invested in oil and gas. It operates primarily in Texas and Oklahoma.
       The Savanah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has been researching such technology for twenty years. SRNL will lead the development of technology for the TE project with assistance from Sandia National Laboratories and Idaho National Laboratory.

       Hydrogen is used in the production of ammonia, petroleum refining, the production of other industrial chemicals and other industrial applications. In the future, it is expected that hydrogen will play an increasing role in energy storage. Applications will include being used as fuel for all forms of transportation. The hydrogen market is projected to reach over two hundred billion dollars by 2020.
       Hydrogen is currently produced by high-temperature steam electrolysis. TE and SE hope that their new process will be more efficient than electrolysis. In their new approach, the hybrid sulfur process will be combined with an IMSR plant for large scale hydrogen production. The hybrid sulfur process is a two-step thermochemical cycle for decomposing water into hydrogen and oxygen. They claim that their process will emit zero greenhouse gas.
        A project manager at S.C. said, “This is a potentially high-impact project that couples the benefits of molten salt reactors with the development of an advanced water-splitting process for hydrogen generation.”
       The CEO of TE said, “By combining forces with an energy leader such as Southern Company, we can bring this revolutionary technology to industrial markets. Using an IMSR power plant to produce hydrogen more efficiently and economically is just one of many industrial applications of IMSR power plants beyond electricity generation. Removing carbon from the production of hydrogen helps bring deep decarbonization into reach. It points the way to the production of carbon-neutral transport fuels and zero-emissions fertilizers.”

Ambient office  = 122 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 74 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 73 nanosieverts per hour

Red potato from Central Market = 64 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 110 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 98 nanosieverts per hour

       I have blogged before about the volatility in the price of uranium on the global market. Currently the price is very low but it has been climbing because of production cuts at mines, cancelled mining projects and interest from investors in commodities. The price has rising thirty percent since April. Industry analysts say that uranium is poised to rise in price even more after a variety of problems have depressed the price for the past ten years. One big factor is China’s dedication to nuclear power as a solution to pollution and climate change.
       Nick Stansbury is a fund manager at Legal & General Investment Management. He said, “In the parts of the world, which face growing demand for clean energy such as China, nuclear power is going to be really important.”
       On the other hand, some analysts point to recent problems that have depressed prices and say that investors should be cautious. They say that there are high inventories of uranium and renewables are providing serious competition for nuclear power.
       The World Nuclear Association (WNA) is an international organization that promotes nuclear power and provides support for companies involved in the global nuclear industry. The three-day WNA Symposium is starting today in London, U.K. This Symposium is touted as being the “premier annual event” for the global nuclear industry.
       Two of the major topics expected to be discussed at the Symposium are the recent cuts in uranium supply and the recent activities of Kazatomprom, the Kazakhstan company which is the biggest producer of uranium in the world today. Spot markets are commodities exchanges where contracts are cut for immediate delivery of commodities.
        Colin Hamilton is manager director of commodities research at BMO Capital Markets in London. He said, “In our view, this will result in debates over how much of the currently excessive inventory levels are actually available to the market. We still see inventories as an overhang for uranium, but the recent market events do now mean that the supply side of the industry is starting to address the issues which have led to consistent inventory build over the past decade.”
      Spot markets are commodities exchanges where contracts are cut for immediate delivery of commodities. The price of uranium on the spot market in April was about twenty dollars a pound. This week, it is twenty-six dollars and forty five cents a pound. The main cause of this increase has been the reduction in supply. Kazatomprom has lowered its output. Cameco in Canada and Paladin Resources in Australia have both stopped operation. It is estimated that the output from uranium mines will drop from one hundred sixty five million pounds per year in 2016 to one hundred and forty million pounds this year.
       . Recently, Kazatomprom bypassed the uranium spot market and will sell a quarter of its annual production to Yellow Cake, which is a London investment vehicle. YC intends to buy and store a large quantity of uranium in anticipation of a major increase in the price of uranium.  YC has an option to buy another one hundred million dollars worth of uranium from Kazatomprom for the next nine year.    
      Even with the Kazatomprom actions and plans, it will still take a long time to consume the stockpiles of uranium that have been accumulated during the past ten years. In 2009, there was about six hundred million pounds of uranium in inventory around the world. By 2018, those stockpiles had increased by to almost eight hundred million pounds.
       Long-term contracts from utilities for uranium have helped keep struggling uranium suppliers in business but many of those long-term contracts will expire in the near future. Analysists believe that the utilities will be eager to sign new supply contracts as quickly as possible to insure stable supply and to lock in a price. Unless prices are locked in for the long term, supply dynamics suggest that prices could drop to even lower than recent record low prices which could result in more mine closures or production cutbacks.

Ambient office  = 110 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 105 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Roma tomato from Central Market = 74 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

      Nuclear power has been used to power ships and submarines. There have been attempts to use nuclear engines in U.S. aircraft and missiles, but it turned out to be impractical because of the need for heavy shielding to prevent emission of a lot of radiation. The Russians have announced a missile that they say utilizes a nuclear engine, but all the tests of the prototypes so far have failed. However, work has continued over the years to reduce the size of a nuclear reactor and reduce the need for shielding.
        One of the main problems with creating a nuclear engine is that so far, most nuclear reactors are just used to generate heat that is then used to boil water. The steam is used to turn a turbine to convert the heat into electricity. The need for all the steam engine technology makes the reactor system much more massive and complex. There have been experiments in other ways to convert the heat from a nuclear reactor directly into electricity. Many space probes are powered by radioisotopes that use thermocouple to convent heat to electricity in a special type of battery. It should be possible to use such a nuclear system to supply electricity to a battery that could then be used to power an electric engine.
        Mark Adams is a physicist who used to work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He has created a new design for a nuclear engine similar to a car engine. Instead of pistons that go up and down, the engine would resemble the Wankel design from the 1950s with a rotor that rotates around a crankshaft. The Wankel engine design has been used in Mazda cars since the 1970s.        Global Energy Research Associated (GERA) is a company started by Adams that is dedicated to innovation in the energy sector. They are working on the design and funding of the new engine.
       The fuel for the new engine is a gasified “nanofuel”. It contains radioactive materials mixed with hydrogen. This fuel can be extracted from spent nuclear fuel or created from scratch. A neutron source triggers a controlled nuclear fission reaction which generates heat. The heat drives the rotor and turns the crankshaft.
       Adams says, “Much like the way your car converts chemical energy into mechanical work, our engine converts nuclear energy directly and safely into useful mechanical work. This eliminates a lot of expensive reactor equipment and paves the way for low-cost nuclear power plants.”
       Adams claims that a combined-cycle configuration of his engine could produce three hundred and forty megawatts of electricity. The only radioactive waste produced by the engine are cesium and strontium. They have half-lives of around thirty years. This is much less of a problem than the spent nuclear fuel generated by a convention nuclear power reactor. It may be possible to burn radioactive wastes in this engine. The Idaho National Laboratory is working on creating a prototype of the new engine to test the concepts in the design. The engine is designed to automatically shut down if there are problems in operation. A meltdown accident is impossible in the new engine.
       It will be interesting to follow the research and development of this new nuclear engine.